A couple of nice things to post about. Today is the birthday of a friend, so I decided to stitch a design for her card of a cupcake. The design was taken from a small booklet that came with a recent edition of World of Cross Stitch magazine, to which I subscribe. It was a lovely little piece to stitch and produced a neat little picture. I dithered about mounting it in an aperture card - some stitched designs do look much better that way but as the design had its own little square border round it, I decided to mount it directly onto a card, although as you can see, I layered it with a very pretty selection of papers.

I also wanted to post her a small gift but as the gift was going via the post, was conscious of the weight issue. Possibilitites included a coaster or a key ring, but I knew she enjoyed reading, so I decided on a bookmark. The little booklet also had some very pretty designs for bookmarks, so I stitched one on aida band, using some variegated thread for the larger flowers. At this point, I could just have backed it with interfacing, but that didn't seem enough, so I used some felt, cut in a strip with my rotary cutter just a bit wider than the aida band. Then I used my sewing machine to stitch the completed, pressed aida onto the felt. Finally, I cut a small fringe at the base of the band, leaving me with a very pretty and practical lightweight gift.

The last step was to wrap it in some very lovely K & Co paper, with a ribbon and tag added and then it was off to the Post Office. The gift arrived a couple of days ago, and today was her birthday, so now I feel I can write about it without spoiling the surprise. I'm delighted with how this foray into bookmarks has gone, and think this could be an excellent idea for Christmas gifts as there are a wide variety of very attractive and suitable patterns around and of course felt is available in a rainbow of colours at all craft shops. It's also very useful to be able to send a small gift through the post when you don't see people too often.